Monarch Me
by TomatoBomb
Summary: Post-ep to 3x04. Butterflies. Cal visits Gillian in her office as opposed to the other way around. Cal/Gillian.


A/N: Watched season three so far again in a row, back to back. I highly recommend it. The subtext yells louder when you string it all together at once as opposed to over several weeks. I know the butterfly thing has been written to all Hell, but I just had to write _something_ after watching 3x04 in particular.

Oh and follow Cal's advice and go look up monarch and viceroy butterflies if you're confused. :)

Cal/Gillian. Written by Michy; 31.12.10

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**Monarch Me**

"I was a heavy heart to carry / my beloved was weighed down.

My arms around his neck / my fingers laced to crown."

_(Florence + The Machine)_

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"Butterfly."

Gillian looked up from her desk, spotting Cal leaning against the doorframe of her office. She dropped her pen without thinking, closing the file in front of her as she blinked slowly before smiling at the same speed. Cal returned it instantly, still mysteriously at her door.

"Yes?" Gillian replied after a moment in a sing-song voice, as if responding to a pet name.

Cal grinned and finally crossed the threshold into her office, hands in pockets, swaying as he walked as he usually did. He seemed nervous about something but Gillian reminded herself that he has typically been that way all his life. He stopped several feet from her desk and stayed silent. He knew Gillian's expression was screaming curiosity at him, but he couldn't speak, so he didn't. Gillian pushed her chair away from her desk and stood up. Cal followed her with his eyes as she walked in front of her desk and perched on the edge, facing him and obviously trying to demonstrate she was giving him her full attention.

"I learned something yesterday, love," Cal said quietly. Gillian's smile relaxed him somewhat though he was still fidgeting with his pockets and shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"There's a first time for everything," Gillian's reply earned a mirthful smirk from Cal. It fed her smile further and Cal took it as a good sign that she was being playful with him. Maybe it was back to the good old days after all.

"No, but honestly, love, I did. I learned..." Cal paused here, eliciting a faux bored sigh from Gillian. He chuckled and continued, "I learned that people can be like butterflies too."

Gillian wasn't following his logic. "And how is that?" She was interested though, Cal saw it all over her face as she tried to determine in advance where this was going.

"I mean that, people," he started using his hands to illustrate his points in the air, and shifted on his feet more. "Women, really. Well, they can look like one thing and be a complete other thing."

"Are you trying to tell me how you got played by Naomi? I won't say 'I told you so'," Gillian looked down and smiled. She was silently glad the woman who Cal seemed so taken with turned out to not be a viable date option, though the more she thought about it, the guiltier she felt for thinking that.

"Nah, love. Did you hear about earlier when I was telling Torres about the butterflies? The monarch and the viceroy. Well, I meant it about the museum people and her situation but then it ended up fitting in with this thing I learned so, well, I thought that was odd," Cal elaborated.

"How am I like a butterfly?" Gillian made her eyes soft and resolute, not breaking contact as she asked the question.

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, love, if you'll stop interrupting," Cal said with mock seriousness. Gillian laughed softly but still didn't break eye contact.

"I'm terribly sorry. Please continue," she replied with mock graciousness.

"That's better," this earned him another smile. "You see, the monarch and the viceroy butterflies are different. On the outside, they look the same. Beautiful, colourful, full of life... So predators hunt them equally. But one leaves an awful bitter taste in your mouth, while the other is... what it is."

"What is it?" Gillian questioned.

"The one that doesn't taste bad is what it is. A butterfly. Beautiful, colourful... all that. And then some," Cal answered quietly, as if he were letting her in on a secret. Somehow, Gillian thought he might be. "And women can be like that too. Beautiful... yeah, but with that bitter taste while others are beautiful and... the rest." Cal drilled his eyes into hers, like molten ash.

Gillian didn't speak for a few long moments, which felt like hours inside her head. She was trying to reason out why Cal was saying this to her, now of all times, and what he wanted from her in return. He continued looking at her expectantly, as if she were to speak up at any moment. Truly, she didn't know how to respond.

"How do you tell them apart without biting them?" Gillian managed after a beat, no race of humour in her voice. Although Cal's quick upturn of his lips told her that he understood her second meaning as well, even if he chose not to address it.

"Well, where's the fun in that?" he replied.

Gillian rolled her eyes and moved to stand up, turning to walk back behind her desk but Cal's sudden hands on each side of her, blocking her path, both startled and stopped her. His face was inches away now as he kept his hands at either side, trapping her in front of the desk. She decided to play a little longer and looked up at him without surprise. Cal liked what he saw, she noted, as the upturn of his lips became higher and the lines around his eyes deepened.

"I need a net to keep you in," Cal grinned lopsidedly at her.

Gillian laughed at this, at his absurdity. "You weave a tangled web as it is."

"Now you're mixing up my bug metaphors and I don't like it one bit," he joked.

"You love it," Gillian replied flatly, again keeping eye contact with him, and his face went from the playful features of a few moments ago to a stone, serious and schooled.

"You know I do, love," he was still and calm, something he never was. And he was still so close.

Gillian felt something different in the air around them than from a few moments ago, from a few days ago, even from a few years ago. They've sparred with words almost daily since knowing each other but this time, this subject, was different than the rest, at least to him, she thought. Cal wanted something. He was trying to tell her something. She thought she knew what it was, which was why she sat back down on the desk with his face hovering above her. The thought made it harder to breathe and harder to stand. But Gillian Foster never counted all her cocoons before they hatched.

Cal didn't know why he kept pushing this time, this time after so many other times. He didn't move his arms, didn't allow her to move away, as he noted she didn't seem to mind it. He knew that last night's events after the museum gala took a toll on him and he wanted nothing more than to be rid of the memory of Naomi and her scheme. He sought out Gillian's company this morning as soon as he arrived at the office because he wanted to be in the presence of something good and noble, beautiful and true. He knew only one woman who fit that description.

He knew it was not his own mind that brought him here, instead his heart, and for all the years he'd controlled himself and held back, today was not one of them. Would things change from now on? Possibly. But now he knew for sure she would never leave, not for something like this, a butterfly of her type would never be so cruel. So he stopped holding back.

Before Gillian could fully register what was happening, Cal's hands were on her neck and his lips were on hers. She was stunned at first but quickly reciprocated his slow kiss. She brought her arms up around his neck, one hand in his hair as they continued as such for what felt like a very long time to both of them.

"If that's what you learned yesterday, I'd say you're a good student," Gillian smiled up at him after they broke for air, finally. Her arms still around his neck, loosely now, a reminder of what just happened between them.

Cal was grinning like a cat and the sight made Gillian's heart lighter, to see a grown man, especially Cal, so blissful over a simple kiss. She felt the calmest she'd been in ages, in his arms, knowing now for sure what he felt for her. She never thought their first real kiss would be in her office, at her desk, just after sunrise on an uneventful Wednesday morning. He always surprised her, that she knew for certain.

"Butterfly," he bestowed the word upon her again, this time with a more measured tone, eyeing her up and down as he did so. He said it almost appreciatively as his eyes roamed her body. "Butterfly."

"Are you going to call me that forever now?" Gillian asked with a lilt of annoyance, but she secretly thought it sweet.

"Nah, darling. Just a question though," he replied.

"And what would that be?" Gillian purposefully echoed her words from when he'd first shown up at her door, her hands joining at the base of his neck.

"Monarch me?" Cal looked her in the eyes to gauge her reaction. For a moment, Gillian seemed stunned, thinking he was about to say something else, until she noticed the object in his hand he was holding out to her. Her arms came down from his neck to take it.

It was a wooden box, like a shadow box for a picture. There, pressed under glass, was a beautiful orange and black butterfly, preserved. The etched metal plate, also under the glass, read "Monarch Butterfly, circa 1970" in script. Gillian was shocked but the meaning of the gift did not escape her. The year was the year she was born.

She looked back up at Cal with a glisten of tears in her eyes. She set the boxed butterfly gently down on her desk before her arms flew up to be around his neck again, but this time the rest of her joined them. He pulled her in closer for a tight hug, content on staying that way forever. He felt like a better person just being close to her like this, like she was changing him from the inside, without ever trying. He swayed her back and forth as she cried softly, though he knew too, not from sadness.

Cal smiled into her hair as his eyes stared at the orange butterfly now on her desk, it's wings matching the colour of the trees outside on the street below. The bright colours made the grey street look lively. And he kept smiling, as he now knew that every day would be better looking than the last.


End file.
